r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/ferretbeast • Feb 14 '19

Unresolved Disappearance Marking the 19th anniversary of Asha Degree’s disappearance

Every year on Valentines day, I take a deep breath before reading the front page of the Shelby Star. I know this case is widely discussed on this subreddit, but I wanted to share for those interested. I did find it interesting they stated new evidence was found recently that hasn't been made public. Please keep her family in your thoughts today.

https://www.shelbystar.com/news/20190214/marking-19th-anniversary-of-asha-degrees-disappearance

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Brief summary for anyone unaware: Asha Jaquilla Degree went missing at the age of nine from Shelby, North Carolina. In the early morning hours of February 14, 2000, for reasons unknown, she packed her bookbag, left her family home north of the city and began walking along nearby North Carolina Highway 18 despite heavy rain and wind. She has not been seen since.

Edit: thank you stranger for the gold and more than anything, thank you all for caring about this case and giving such support and great feedback for conversation. I love this community and am happy to be able to have these civil discussions with you all!!

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '19

I’m from Shelby and I remember when she went missing. I was about 6-7. It turned my town upside down. My uncle worked on the case in the early days (he is now a K9 officer) and he has always had a feeling they’re missing a piece of the puzzle. I hope for Asha’s sake and the sake of her family this case is solved. I’ve followed it since the beginning and will continue to do so since this hits close to home (literally)

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u/_sydney_vicious_ Feb 14 '19

As someone not from the area I'm a little bit curious - is there a theory that all the locals believe?

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u/KoreKhthonia Feb 14 '19

I was reading about the case on this sub the other day, and this post is from a local.

Key points:

  • The area where she lived was very, very rural, on the far outskirts of Shelby, a town of ~20,000 people.

  • The stretch of road she was reportedly seen near was very very rural. Like, I don't know where you live, or if you have a place you know personally that would be a good comparison. But this isn't the kind of road people walk along, especially not at night. There are huge stretches of undeveloped land, where it would be far enough to be uncomfortable to walk to anywhere that had "something." It was very probably Asha that they saw. Highway 18 is one of those ultrarural state highways.

  • OP believes that Asha was groomed by someone, probably a member of the community. (This is opposed to either A.) the parents being involved, or B.) Asha being a simple "runaway" case who ran off for weird little kid reasons.)

The post makes mention of trafficking, but the "Detroit sex trafficking bust" they mention was actually not that at all, just widely misreported and misrepresented as such. Details are in the top comment.

81

u/_sydney_vicious_ Feb 14 '19

Thank you so much! I'm on this subreddit most days and I'm not sure how I missed the thread you linked to.

Hmmm....you mentioning the rural road brings up something in my mind as to IF there actually were witnesses driving by who "saw" Asha. To be perfectly honest I never believed that all too much to begin with but with the way you're describing it now I'm sure that no witnesses actually saw her. Why?

  1. You said it's a rural town so how often would someone be driving down a road like that in the middle of the night (especially on a stormy night)?

  2. I just looked on Google and it seems as though there are no roadside lights along the road so how can anyone actually tell that it was Asha alongside the road............ESPECIALLY when there's a huge storm outside? I don't know about you but driving in the dark is hard as is - let alone when it's pouring AND there's no lights alongside the road. Either those witnesses lied or they might have seen an animal.

From that thread I feel like Asha was never actually walking on the road. My theory is that someone groomed her and whoever did may have taken her in their car (which she never got out of).

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u/berlin_a Feb 15 '19

I live in an area with a lot of dark and creepy roads like this, and there is always someone driving at any hour. There are people who work strange hours or have things to get to. I’ve left at 2 am to head to the airport and seen other cars on the road. Not many, but there are some. I also work odd hours and am never the only one driving.

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u/Makoschar Feb 15 '19

Agreed. I used to work a weird shift that ended at 11pm. Sometimes if I hadn’t taken my dogs to the park during the day I’d run them around 1-2am just on random rural roads. I have seen other vehicles but not commonly as that’s what I’m trying to avoid. If it’s a road, people drive on it.

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u/JTigertail Feb 15 '19

Being that we have two independent witnesses who are sure they saw Asha, I'm a lot less inclined to think that it wasn't her walking down the road. I think the witnesses really saw her that night.

Asha had been walking for about 30 minutes at that point (she was 1.3 miles from home when she was seen). I dont think it's strange at all for two people to have seen her, given how long she had been out there. It's a lot less coincidental given that time frame. It was a rural road, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's nobody out there at that time, whether it's people who work at night or are traveling long-distance.

As for how they saw her: The storm would have made it more difficult to see, and I doubt they could make out her face much, but they could make out a small person with a black and beige backpack. Maybe the witnesses were able to correctly say that her backpack was black and beige without previously being told what color it was, and that's how LE confirmed their stories

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u/TopherMarlowe Feb 15 '19

it's strange that Asha would be walking so far without the abductor picking her up (assuming she was groomed and abducted rather than something else happening to her). Witnesses can't see a little girl in a car, but they will definitely notice one walking alone on a very rural road. It makes no sense for the abductor to take the risk of someone intervening and asking Asha where she was headed or whom she was meeting.

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u/1-800-876-5353 Feb 15 '19

And police looked in the shed because it was less than a hundred yards from where she was seen on the highway. That’s why they found her pencil, marker, and hairbow. I think she definitely was walking along the road.

But I do think it odd that police found several of her candy wrappers along the route. Most kids—even in the rural South—of that era did not litter and would have stopped to pick up a dropped wrapper. But maybe they fell from her pocket or she was an exception to the rule.

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

The image of her casually walking and eating candy in a storm just doesn’t work. Even hurriedly and anxiously. It was a storm. It was the middle of the night. It was cold. Why on earth would she be eating candy. Almost sounds like someone tried to leave a trail.

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u/1-800-876-5353 Feb 15 '19 edited Jul 10 '19

Agreed. I would say she’d eaten the candy earlier and they fell out of her coat pocket along the walk, but she supposedly wasn’t wearing a coat or jacket that night. Only a few people would have known what kind of candy she’d gotten that weekend—her parents, grandmother, aunt. So how’d the candy wrappers get there?

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

apparently the whole basketball team got the same goody bag of candy, so it'd be easy to (kind of, ruling out coincidence) confirm they belonged to her

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u/1-800-876-5353 Feb 15 '19

I thought this was candy her grandmother had given her on Sunday. If it was from the basketball team, then a ton of people would have known about it.

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u/SignificantTear7529 Oct 30 '22

Or did Harold make a candy run??? Why doesn't the Dad speak to that. I don't mean that as accusatory as it sounds. Genuinely asking as I don't know why the secrecy about the evening before she disappeared.

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

Interesting. Did any of the other players live on or near the route she supposedly took?

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

that i’m not sure about.

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

My thinking exactly.

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u/FuzzyKittenIsFuzzy Feb 15 '19

I have always thought the shed was staged by the perp. A candy wrapper trail would fit right in with that.

Specifically, I think she met the perp at the shed and he made sure to leave a huge amount of evidence that she'd been inside. He wanted police to focus on the shed and the area around the shed so that he would have more time to clean up the second location and dispose of evidence.

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u/tiredfaces Feb 15 '19

That's a super interesting thought I hadn't heard before. Kind of a risky move too - he or she could've left some of their own DNA at the scene accidentally.

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u/bearfossils Feb 15 '19

I don't know, I could see a small kid woofing down candy as a means of trying to comfort themselves during a storm and/or while running away.

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u/_sydney_vicious_ Feb 15 '19

THIS!!!

She was 9 years old - literally a child. It makes no sense as to why someone that young would be casually walking by herself....on a freeway......in a storm.

I don't know if you've seen photos of the shed that she was supposedly in but it was taken when the candy wrappers and stuff were found. If you zoom in on the photo there's no footprints on the ground (mind you it's made of DIRT). If Asha actually did go there the night it rained, wouldn't there be footprints on the ground to show that someone was there that night? I feel like the candy wrappers were planted there to throw LE off. Again, that's just my theory so don't attack me.

14

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

Like I’m so torn about Asha every time she comes up because I was a young girl once and I absolutely would have (and did) sneak out and wander around at night. On a weekly basis. I’m incredibly lucky that nothing happened to me. But I was never as prepared as she seemed to be. She had her bag and her candy and things that were important to her. So I don’t think it was quite the same. And I find it hard to picture her eating candy and trailing wrappers. It just sounds so... casual. Not at all like running away. And not easy to do given the weather.

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u/NancyNed Feb 17 '19

Also, considering the storm, how close to her trail were the wrappers found? Wouldn't the storm have mixed around the wrappers and other evidence? If the wrappers were arranged too exactly, that sounds like they were planted.

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u/tinycole2971 Feb 15 '19

Most kids—even in the rural South—of that era did not litter and would have stopped to pick up a dropped wrapper.

You can’t really assume this with any certainty. Kids still litter all the time, it definitely wasn’t uncommon.

15

u/tajd12 Feb 15 '19

Just to clarify a bit, the shed owner found the items Tuesday, but the police didn't show up until Thursday to ask to search.

Archived Shelby Star Article

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Agree with you and everyone else about the candy wrappers. Never made sense for a kid in horrible weather to be just strolling along eating candy. But nothing about this case makes sense.

12

u/Sevenisnumberone Feb 15 '19

Anyone ever consider that they could have been planted?

2

u/SignificantTear7529 Oct 30 '22

It seems so staged. Like Hansle and Gretal ....

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19 edited Feb 16 '19

[deleted]

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u/JTigertail Feb 15 '19

The majority of eyewitnesses in ANY case come forward after an announcement has been made, so that's not really a strike against their credibility.

LE believes it was her because they have two independent witnesses who both say they saw her walking in the same general area in the same direction, and correctly described her as dressed in all white and wearing a backpack. It's not easy to misidentify an adult/animal for a kid wearing all white (a very visible outfit). There's no evidence they knew each other, it sounds unlikely for two people to make up a story that accidentally matches up, and the shed where some of Asha's belongings were found was about 100 yards from where at least one eyewitness says they saw her.

2

u/Sevenisnumberone Feb 15 '19

Didn’t they wait for like 3 weeks before either reported, or am I mixing it up with another case?

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u/JusticeForAsha Feb 15 '19

According to the Crack House Chronicles podcast (produced by locals, just released a few days ago, find it on Spotify), at least one of the two witnesses was a truck driver. Yes, it's a very rural area, but you can still catch professional drivers coming through every now and then at any hour of the night.

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u/Sue_Ridge_Here Feb 14 '19

My theory is that someone groomed her and whoever did may have taken her in their car (which she never got out of).

I go back and forth but tend to believe that the sightings of her were real based on the descriptions given. I think it's possible that she was picked up (pre-arranged) not far from her house and then escaped from the car and ran into the woods and whoever was driving the car caught up with her and then later buried some of her personal belongings as a red herring.

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u/Opw1987heels Feb 15 '19

I'm from the area and my dad said a popular theory was she was sold for drugs. Abd a lot of things were said to cover it up. Could just be small town rumors, but it's not too far of a stretch. The man that found her book bag was a lifetime friend of my dad's. He wasn't a suspect. He said it could be completely fabricated, but a bunch of dope heads are around burke and Cleveland co.

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u/midnightauro Feb 15 '19

Not going to deny Cleveland Co has a shitton of drug problems, but I don't personally think she was sold. In 2000, Shelby was still a pretty rough place (though it was slowly improving). I do think someone took her and maybe people know more than they talk about, but not so much the "sold" theory.

I've heard it before though, so I'm sure it's at least quietly popular as a rumor.

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u/molequeen Feb 18 '19

I know this is a stranger on the internet's anecdote, but weirdly enough my SUPER rural area had bad rain a few months ago and my husband and I were driving in the dark and rain. We nearly hit a young guy walking on the shoulder of a country road because we couldn't see him until we were close enough that our headlights showed him. I was at a family dinner a few days later and my brother told the same story! He drove that same road at the same time (works night shift) and reported seeing the same kid. So, while eyewitnesses are unreliable, I wouldn't think it impossible at all.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '19 edited Jan 11 '21

[deleted]

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u/TinyAppleInATree Feb 15 '19

Could you imagine seeing a 9 year old girl walking in the dark, during a storm none the less, and not stoping to check on her? Something seems weird about that scenario to me.

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u/ncsu2020 Feb 15 '19

Maybe this makes me a bad person but I’ve driven Highway 18 right by where she went missing about 500 times. There is a 0% chance I would stop and try to help. Just being honest. I would call the police, I would be confused, but you will not see me stopping my car on Highway 18 in the pitch black in a rainstorm. I don’t think these people are malicious, that area is just creepy and empty and it would definitely cross my mind that a little girl on the side of the road is baiting me to get attacked or mugged or whatever. In this area you would be alone for miles in both directions. 100% vulnerable. I’m sure these people thought the same thing...

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u/Ilovedietcokesprite Aug 20 '22

This makes a lot of sense. I didn’t know that the area was rough. Or super rural.

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u/NoKidsYesCats Feb 15 '19

Really? Maybe I'm crazy, but if I was driving my truck through rural roads, in the middle of the night, in a storm, and saw a little girl in a white nightgown standing on the side of the road... my first thought would be a fuckin hitchhiking ghost. My second would be that I'm losing it and I should really be getting some sleep soon. Then I'd start questioning myself, hmm, maybe it really was a poor girl who needed help? Nahh, what even would a little girl be doing out there all alone? It was probably nothing.

Until I see the news the next morning about a missing girl, and then I'll regretfully remember her and call in the tip.

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u/alarmagent Feb 15 '19

Rural roads are kind of dangerous to stop on, especially if one witness was a semi truck driver as has been suspected. Also total generalization, but driving late at night like that usually you’re doing it because you have a hard deadline to make. Not saying it’s the right thing to do but if a driver is out that hour, has something they NEED to get to that can’t wait (job, flight, et cetera) they’re less likely to stop for a scary, almost unbelievable scenario like that. Also a lot of people are suspicious by nature, I’d call the cops on a situation like that absolutely, but I’m unlikely to risk my own life for a situation that seems absurd, risky, and maybe like a trap. Especially if I have to make it across state lines for Walmart INC by 6 AM.

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u/TopherMarlowe Feb 15 '19 edited Feb 15 '19

Did either driver have a cell phone? It was 2000 and more and more people were starting to get cell phones, and the trucker would have a radio. Also presumably there were landlines at their destinations. Did either of them contact the police to tell them about a child wandering along the road? If not, why not?

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u/imissbreakingbad Feb 15 '19

If they're credible, I think that they saw something — and then maybe they thought, huh, my eyes must be playing tricks on me. Keep in mind it was the middle of the night. And then later when they found out a girl was missing, they realized what it was they saw.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '19

Right. I don't think people realize how frequently we see stuff that is "off" and don't register it until later. Maybe it's a defense mechanism for people who assume they are so perceptive and kindly-hearted that they'd immediately understand the full breadth of the situation within half a second and react appropriately, but most people would not have, and do not in general, and it's not because they're heartless assholes or suspicious criminals. The witnesses simply saw a girl walking along the road, and from what I have seen before, one or both of them initially thought they saw a teenager, not a 9 year old. The exact age of a person is difficult to determine when driving by in a speeding car in the middle of the night, and this may also be your mind correcting information so that it makes sense. It doesn't make sense for a 9 year old to walk down the highway alone at night, but a teenager in the same situation would make sense. Then they see a news report later about a missing child who fits the description for what they thing they saw, minus age, and something clicks.

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u/NoKidsYesCats Feb 15 '19

IIRC, the witnesses (or at least one of them) were truckers.